I took this photo just outside of Alton before we ever moved here.
At the time, Alton was not officially home. Not on paper, not in our plans, and certainly not in my husband’s mind. Trevor had just received a church in Warsaw, and the idea of moving farther south was not something he was excited about. That is probably putting it mildly. He was against it at first, and from a practical standpoint, I understood why. Life was pointed one direction. Ministry was pointed one direction. Our home, our history, our roots, and my entire photography business were still tied to the lake.
But my heart had already started drifting down these roads.
I had lived at the Lake of the Ozarks most of my life. That place was home in every real sense of the word. The sunrises, the sunsets, the water, the familiar roads, the places I knew without needing directions—so much of who I was had been built there. My photography business was built around that beauty. I had spent years chasing lake light, trying to capture the way the sky could spill color across the water like God had taken a paintbrush to the whole horizon.
It is hard to walk away from a place that helped shape you.
It is even harder when that place still exists, but no longer feels like itself.
Over the last several years, the lake had changed in ways I had a hard time accepting. It was not just growth, although there was plenty of that. The population boom after Covid brought people in from all over—Texas, Oregon, California, and everywhere in between. More full-time residents. More businesses. More building. More noise. More people making their little corners their own.
I do not blame people for wanting a beautiful place. I understand that part completely.
But somewhere along the way, the lake started feeling unfamiliar to me. The scenery changed. The pace changed. The overall feeling changed. The place that used to feel like home began to feel like somewhere I was visiting. I fought that for a long time, mostly because it had always been home. I kept trying to make my heart stay where my history was.
At first, when I came down toward Alton, I told myself it was just pretty.
Then I started saying it felt like my home away from home.
And then, little by little, it became something else.
It felt like the lake used to feel twenty years ago. Quieter. Slower. Wilder around the edges. Less polished. Less crowded. More room to breathe. The rivers, the hills, the backroads, the old places, the wild horses, the little towns, the woods that seemed to go on forever—it all kept pulling at me. Over and over again, I found reasons to come back. Or maybe I should say, God kept giving me reasons to come back.
That day, Penelope and I had been wandering for who knows how many miles.
We had seen so many beautiful things. The kind of day where every stop feels like it should be the best thing you see, until the next turn proves you wrong. By the time we were headed back, I was tired. Penelope was tired. We were both ready for food. I had told her we were going to get dinner, and she believed me, which was my first mistake. Because then I saw this scene.
The road curved just right. The sun was dropping fast. The light hit the hills and fields in a way that made everything glow. The sky was warm and golden, the trees were dark around the edges, and the whole thing looked like a frame God had already built before I ever pulled over.
It was too perfect not to stop.
Penelope disagreed.
She was in her car seat barking at me like I had broken a sacred contract. In fairness, I had told her dinner was next, and instead she got another side quest. I can still picture her little pug face, deeply offended, while I stood on the side of the road trying to capture what was in front of me before the light disappeared.
And standing there, with Penelope fussing behind me, the sun slipping down, and the road winding out in front of us, something settled in me.
This is home.
Not “this is pretty.”
Not “I like it here.”
Not “maybe someday.”
Home.
It was peaceful and terrifying at the same time. The peace came first, sudden and sure. Then almost immediately came the question: How on earth would this ever work?
I did not have an answer. My husband was not on board. Our life was not arranged for it. Nothing about the practical side looked simple. But my heart knew something before the circumstances caught up.
Psalm 37:23 says:
“The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.”
I have thought about that verse a lot since then.
Not because every step felt easy or obvious. Not because the road unfolded in a neat little line. It did not. God ordering our steps does not mean we always understand where they are taking us. Sometimes the steps feel scattered while we are walking them. A drive here. A visit there. A photo stop. A tug on the heart. Another reason to come back. A conversation that seems impossible. A longing that will not leave.
Only later do we look back and see there was a path.
That is what happened with Alton.
I thought I was just exploring. I thought I was chasing pictures, finding quiet places, taking Penelope on another adventure, and giving myself a break from the version of home that no longer felt like home. But I think God was doing something deeper. He was rebuilding something in me, emotionally and spiritually, before I even had the language for it.
I needed a place that did not ask me to be who I had been.
The lake was beautiful, and part of me will always love it. But it also held so much of the old version of my life. Old routines. Old memories. Old expectations. Old griefs. Old ways of surviving. Alton felt like a place where I could become again. Not become someone entirely different, but become more whole. More quiet. More rooted. More honest about what I needed and where God was leading.
That is not an easy thing to admit.
Because sometimes obedience looks like leaving something that made sense for something that does not yet make sense at all.
Hebrews 11:8 says:
“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”
I am not comparing myself to Abraham in some grand dramatic way. I was not packing camels and heading into the unknown with a whole nation promised through me. I was standing on the side of a Missouri road with a barking pug in the car and a camera in my hand.
But that phrase—not knowing whither he went—I understand that part.
Sometimes you know God is moving you before you know where the details will land. Sometimes you feel the call before you can explain it without sounding a little ridiculous. Sometimes your heart recognizes home before your life has made room for it.
That is uncomfortable for people like me. I want to understand the whole picture. I want to know how it works, when it works, who will agree, what will change, what it will cost, and whether I will regret it. I want a spreadsheet from heaven, preferably with highlighted sections and a confirmation number.
God rarely hands me that.
Instead, He gives steps.
One at a time.
A road. A sunset. A tug on my heart. A peace I cannot quite explain. A certainty that settles before the plan does.
Psalm 107:7 says:
“And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.”
That verse fits this memory so well it almost makes me laugh. Not because Alton is some great city, because it is not. That is part of why I love it. But “a city of habitation” is really about being led to a place where you can dwell. A place where you can settle. A place where you can stop wandering quite so hard.
For a long time, I think I was still trying to live in the place that used to feel like home, while my soul was already being led somewhere else.
That is a strange kind of grief.
It is not clean. It does not mean the old place was bad. It does not mean the new place is perfect. It just means the season changed, and I had to be honest enough to admit it. The lake had been home. The lake had been good to me. The lake had given me beauty, memories, and a business built around the kind of light most photographers would love to have in their own backyard.
But God was not asking me to worship the old season.
He was asking me to follow.
And following is scary when you are being rebuilt.
I think that is the part I keep coming back to. This move was not just about geography. It was not just a prettier view, a quieter road, or a new county. God was rebuilding me. Emotionally, spiritually, slowly, and in ways I could not have explained at the beginning.
When something is being rebuilt, things do not always look sturdy right away. There is mess. There is uncertainty. There are pieces that have to come down before anything new can stand. There are moments when you look around and wonder if you heard God right, because nothing feels finished and everything feels expensive in ways you did not expect.
But rebuilding is not the same as falling apart.
Sometimes it looks similar for a while.
That is where obedience matters. Not dramatic obedience. Not loud obedience. Not the kind that always makes sense to everyone watching. Just the next faithful step. The next conversation. The next prayer. The next road. The next yes.
I wish I could say I followed all of it gracefully. I did not. I fought the idea of leaving the lake for a long time, even after my heart knew. I fought it because it had always been home. I fought it because so much of my identity was tied to that place. I fought it because Trevor was not on board yet, and I had no desire to drag him into something God had not made clear to him too.
So I waited.
Not always patiently, but I waited.
And little by little, the impossible thing became possible. Not overnight. Not because I figured it all out. Not because I forced the door open. But because God orders steps in ways we often only recognize afterward.
Looking back now, I can see how He was leading. I can see how the pull toward this area was not random. I can see how the ache I felt over the lake changing was not just sadness, but part of being loosened from one season and prepared for another. I can see how every trip, every backroad, every stop with Penelope, every sunset, every quiet moment helped my heart understand what my mind was still trying to argue against.
That day outside of Alton, the argument got quiet.
The road curved into the light, Penelope barked from the car, and I knew.
This is home.
I did not know how it would work. I did not know when it would happen. I did not know how God would move in Trevor’s heart, or how the pieces would shift, or what we would have to walk through to get here. But I knew God had put something in me that was not going away.
And now, I am here.
Still being rebuilt.
Still waiting to see the fruit of obedience.
Still learning that blessing does not always show up as instant ease. Sometimes blessing looks like being planted where God wants you, even before you fully understand why. Sometimes it looks like peace that arrives before the plan. Sometimes it looks like a winding road at sunset and the strange certainty that you are being led.
I believe Jesus blesses obedience. Not always by making life simple. Not always by giving us exactly what we pictured. But abundantly, in the ways that matter most: peace, purpose, provision, growth, a place to dwell, and the steady reminder that He knows the road even when we do not.
So I am waiting.
Waiting to see what grows here. Waiting to see what God builds in us. Waiting to see the fruit of the steps He ordered long before I knew where they were leading.
And when I look at this photo, I remember the moment my heart knew.
The lake had been home.
But this road was leading me somewhere new.
